UK Data Protection Update - June 2015

Our update for March, April & May has been edited by our new team member, Heledd Lloyd-Jones, who joined us from Blake Morgan this month.

This issue contains a large number of data protection or related cases. To pick out two:

In Reactiv TV Media, Reactiv TV appealed to the Information Tribunal against a monetary penalty notice of £50,000 imposed by the Information Commissioner for illegal tele-marketing. The Tribunal chose to impose a higher penalty of £7,5000.

In The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority v ICO & Leapman, the Court of Appeal ordered the Standards Authority to release copies of documents to Mr Leapman, not just transcripts of material contained in the documents. The Court of Appeal accepted Mr Leapman's argument that, in this case, the documents themselves could contain additional information - such as logos, or letterheading, which would be relevant information and which would not be contained in a transcript.

The European Court has accepted in Y.S. v Minister voor Immigratie that it is not necessary to provide copies of documents in response to a subject access request: a summary of the information contained in the documents would be sufficient. The Parliamentary Standards case, albeit a freedom of information case, suggests that this may not always be the case. Sometimes a copy will contain additional relevant information.